Authors Note: Again, thanks to Shannon (GothicBlackRose) for her request of this fic and her beta of it. I think this might be the first time I've had the same beta all the way through! This is the last chapter and though I'm sad to see this story go I have several others up my sleeve coming your way! Also, if anyone would like to know about updates and/or new projects you can find me on Facebook or my Yahoo Group (see my profile for details). If you haven't already, please check out Trophy and Becoming - my newest fics.

Chapter 13 Broken

I blinked my eyes against the harsh light of our destination and quickly realized Dumbledore hadn't brought us to where I had expected him to apparate us. I assumed we'd be off to Gringotts bank to work out the details of Harry's Will but instead we were standing in the bustling lobby of St. Mungo's Hospital. My heart sped up rapidly as the Mediwizards and ill patients moved around us. Was Dumbledore really so tactless as to make me see Harry's dead body? I might have wanted to see him again at some point, but it was far too soon, and in all honesty I preferred to remember him as he was.

Alive.

Could I bear to see the life gone from such a charismatic boy? Could I withstand the guilt at seeing him lying in the morgue and knowing he was there because he wanted to rid the world of an evil so that he could finally be with me? Maybe our relationship rushed him and he was too premature in fighting the Dark Lord, maybe he would have lived if only he had waited a year, or even a few months more.

I couldn't seem to get my jaw to work so that I could protest Dumbledore's plans. It felt as if my mouth was stuffed with cotton and my tongue couldn't move around it. When he took off down a side corridor at a brisk pace I followed him blindly, ready to shut my eyes at the first sign of thick black hair and a pale lightning bolt scar, there was nothing else I could do.

I'm sure my face betrayed my fear as I roamed the corridor beside the elderly wizard. It felt as if my pulse should be audible because it was beating so loudly and I was sure one of the passing mediwizards would spot the shimmer of sweat on my skin and think I had contracted an illness or perhaps had ingested one of the Weasley's notorious treats.

Maybe I had, I surely felt ill enough.

Finally we had arrived at an unmarked door, and before the Headmaster could open it I clamped my eyes shut. A moment later I was being led into the room and then shaken slightly. "Mr. Malfoy… Draco, I need you to open your eyes."

"No," I whined, unable to say anything else.

A soft chuckle reverberated around the walls and I wanted to slug the Headmaster for his joy in seeing me in pain. But then I felt the Headmaster shift beside me then heard him as he padded back over to the door. I wanted to reach out and force him take me from the room as well, but my limbs wouldn't respond to my brain's frantic shouting. "I promise there is nothing here to harm you," Dumbledore assured and then he was gone.

Didn't he think I knew that? Surely there was nothing a dead body could do to me; it didn't mean I wanted to look upon the remains of my deceased lover. Merlin knows what kind of condition he would be in after a vicious battle with an evil Dark Lord.

The room was eerily silent, silent like the dead and my whole body shuddered.

Finally I steeled myself and opened my eyes. They immediately trained onto the slight form on the only bed in the room. All I could see at first was dark messy curls and pale, nearly translucent skin. Then more details began revealing themselves as I continued to stare. It was like a train wreck, no matter how horrid I just couldn't pull my eyes away. He was mostly covered in blankets, but his face and neck were exposed. Harry had a split lip, and a deep cut along his brow, but otherwise he just looked exhausted.

I wanted to slap myself for the description. He didn't look tired he looked dead.

Except that he didn't.

My nerve endings went supernova as I crept closer and closer to the bed, close enough that I could see his thin chest rise and fall, barely, but steadily. I must have shouted the sheer joy and relief I suddenly felt, because Harry's eyes flicked open and those green orbs pierced me with slight confusion at first and then an unending warmth that I never wanted to look away from.

"They found you," he rasped, his voice scratchy and worn.

"Who?" I asked, and then shook my head. It didn't matter what he meant. Harry was alive and I was with him and all would be well from now on. I ran to him and pulled him to me until I realized that he was severely injured and then I nearly jumped back like I had been burned.

"Sorry," I told him, wincing from embarrassment and causing him pain.

"Draco Malfoy don't you dare apologize for hugging me," he warned, his tone menacing.

I tried to laugh but it was almost forced. "I just-"

He shook his head, cutting off my words and reached for my hand. "Would you just get over here and kiss me, or I swear to Merlin I'll have the mediwitch make you do it."

I did laugh then, letting the trauma and grief I had felt all morning fade away. A moment later and my lips had found Harry's, and though I tried to be easy with him, he would have nothing of it and instead he pulled me into a crushing kiss.

When we broke apart I searched his face for any sign that I might have hurt him, but I saw nothing there but relief and a contentment that I wasn't used to seeing on anyone, let alone Harry. Typically he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but then he just looked peaceful.

"I missed you," Harry whispered, threading his fingers through my own as our hands mingled on the bedspread.

"You should have stayed then," I offered, giving him the most withering gaze I could muster under the circumstances. Having the love of your life dead and then suddenly not dead will make you forgive them for a lot of nonsense, but I could still remember the cloying feeling of loneliness and hurt from when he left me. Forgiving and forgetting was not the same thing.

"You… you understand that I couldn't, right? I wasn't trying to be malicious, I just had to finish this war before we could be together again," he reasoned, his eyes pleading for me to understand.

All I could do was nod. I did understand, but that didn't make it hurt any less. But time heals all wounds, so they say, and if Harry stayed with me then I would have plenty of time to replace those feelings of betrayal with something more pleasant.

"I almost lost it when they said you'd died," I muttered, changing the subject. "I suppose they exaggerated a little," I added with a huff.

"No," he replied, looking concerned and tightening his grip on my hand. "They didn't."

I rolled my eyes and gestured to his perfectly animated face with my free hand. "Clearly they did. I mean you're pretty banged up, but dead feels a little different from what you're feeling right now."

"I know exactly what death feels like," Harry replied and removed his hand from mine so that he could open the robes that covered his chest. The pale skin there was riddled with deep cuts and purplish-green bruises. The cuts were still mending themselves, so quickly I could nearly see it happening right before my eyes, so they had to have been almost twice as deep if not deeper when he received them. Any one of them would have been fatal on anyone, even the great Harry Potter, but Harry had nearly a dozen crisscrossing his chest, which meant that there was no reason he should be talking to me right them.

"How-" I started to ask, but he closed the robe back and took my hand again.

"They said I was dead before they even got me here," he whispered, staring vacantly past me at something I couldn't quite see. "They tried everything to heal me but nothing worked because I was already too far gone."

"That's impossible, Harry. Once you're dead, you're dead. You must have just been unconscious or something," I replied, shaking my head in disbelief. I wouldn't believe it, couldn't.

Harry bit into his bottom lip and shook his head.

"Okay, let's say for the sake of argument, that you were dead, then how are you sitting here talking to me now?" I asked petulantly. "You don't look like, sound like, or even smell like an Inferi for that matter."

A cheeky grin spread across his face and he leaned over as if to whisper his great escape from death like a secret in my ear. "I got better," he said at last, and I rolled my eyes.

"You got better?" I replied, trying not to encourage him by laughing. "How?"

"I think you know," he replied, his eyes taking on a serious gleam that hadn't been there before.

It was then that I remembered my experience with the potion, and how it was Harry who had pulled me back to my body. I remembered our kiss exactly what it felt like and it all fell into place. With a gasp I stared at him in horror. "Did they tell you what time it was when you got - 'better'?"

"It was one minute before nine this morning," he replied and nodded to confirm what I had deduced from his previously cryptic words. "You remember don't you? You remember me getting you back to your body and-"

"Kissing me," I finished, my fingers going automatically to my lips as if I could still feel the residual tingle from it and Harry nodded.

"Dumbledore said I had been dead for hours and then I just started breathing again," he said, sounding as if it was hard for him to believe as well.

"But you were only there for a short time," I protested, recalling the exact moment I had spotted him and thinking it was Edward.

"It took me awhile to find where you had gone, but I had been watching you since before you even took the potion, that's how I knew what to do. I knew you had to get back into your body or else you'd be stuck. Though to be honest-" he began, but then looked bashfully away.

"What?" I asked, pulling his face back toward me.

"It's terrible and selfish I know, but part of me wanted you to stay so that I could be with you. I had no idea that I would come back too. I thought I was letting you go forever," he whispered, a deep sadness in his eyes.

"I almost stayed on my own just because it was so comfortable and I missed being near you," I admitted. "But I didn't think it was really you. I thought my mind had made you up just to get me out of there."

He chuckled and pulled me onto the bed with him in a movement swifter than I thought he would be capable in his current condition. "It all worked out," he mused.

I kissed him, pouring all of the relief and yearning I felt at being with him again into it. "It worked out even better than you know," I told him when we broke apart. "We really are supposed to be together, it's our destiny."

"I heard," Harry chuckled. "I suppose it's much better than some of the other things I've been destined for."

"What do you mean you heard?" I asked, taken slightly off guard.

"I was there, remember? It took me awhile to find you, but I heard most of what happened," he replied. "A curse on both your bloodlines," he recited in a mock seer voice that sounded suspiciously like Trelawney.

"Oh," I pouted, having wanted to recount the tale for him.

He smiled at me and leaned his head on my shoulder. "What I don't understand is how you knew to go exactly there. I mean, you mentioned a dream to Shannon when you took the potion, but then while I was trying to find you I heard her grumbling about a broken Time Turner."

I blushed; I knew I was because I could feel the heat crawling up my neck. "About that… I might owe Granger an apology."

Harry narrowed his eyes and shook his head knowingly. "I think it might be best left unsaid then. It's going to be hard enough to get her and Ron to accept you as my boyfriend."

The grin that erupted on my face couldn't be helped. "Boyfriend?" I inquired.

"For now," He replied.

"Do you think they'll ever be okay with it? Weasel and Granger, I mean?" I asked.

"You might want to start calling them Ron and Hermione, but yeah. They'll come around to the idea. Dumbledore told me he gave them quite the shock when he pulled them into his office to go over my Will," he said with a chuckle.

"You could say that. It nearly got me a beating in the middle of the Great Hall. You should warn a guy when you're planning to make him your sole benefactor," I chastised.

"I couldn't run the risk of you offing me for the payday," he teased.

I merely rolled my eyes because a statement like that didn't warrant a reply. With a yawn I curled back up against him and we just stayed silent for a while. It was warm and comfortable, just being able to lie there and hold him again.

"You lied to me about the Malfoy journals," Harry said softly and suddenly, breaking the silence and at my confused look he elaborated. "That first day by the lake when we were both invisible. You told me you knew about our ancestors because of some journals you read from the Malfoy library."

"Guilty," I admitted. "In all fairness what I did is not nearly as bad as you leaving me or dying," I countered.

"I suppose you have me there," he replied with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Though if we're keeping score, you got engaged and you risked your life with that potion behind my back."

I gaped, it was all I could muster after he blindsided me with that. "You left me, and you actually died! That is so much worse than what I did," I retorted, pursing my lips and challenging him to deny it.

"You already said that," he replied with a grin.

"You're insufferable, did you know that?" I asked, trying not to give in and smile myself.

"So I've been told," he muttered and pulled me into another kiss. "Do you think you can put up with me for a few dozen years? I mean, it is our destiny to be together after all. It's not as if we have a choice in the matter," he teased.

I laughed. "I suppose I could suffer through it, so long as you only live to about a hundred and fifty or so, after that we might need to renegotiate."

"Deal," he replied, holding out his hand to shake.

I rolled my eyes and took his hand only to pull him against me in another kiss. As our bodies fell together I knew that there was no place I would rather be.

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Twenty Years Later

"You're insufferable," I called out over the din in the kitchen.

A mass of Malfoy's, Weasley's and various other friends were gathered in the next room, all waiting to be fed a delicious New Year's meal, and Harry was still adjusting the apron he had made me wear. I wasn't even doing any of the real cooking- that was still being done by the house elves. I was merely attempting to look like he had prepared the meal ourselves so as not to hear Hermione rant about House Elf Equality all night.

"One of these day's you are going to have to come up with something more original to call me, but I'm not holding my breath," Harry teased.

I rolled my eyes and looked down at the green apron that said 'Harry's' in scrolling silver script. To his credit, Harry was wearing a red apron with gold letters that said 'Draco's', but still it was a silly thing. It had seemed funny an adorable when we got them, but that was when we used them for cooking breakfast and wore nothing underneath. Now, here in front of my parents, Shannon and an entire clan of Weasley's it only seemed mortifying.

"They'll all think it's cute, swear," Harry assured me, but I shook my head.

"That's what I don't want them to think! Malfoy's are not cute!" I protested and pouted playfully.

"This one is," Harry replied with a smile as he pinched my cheek like a least favorite Aunt might do.

"Can we get this over with?" I asked and he nodded sweetly and patted me on the bum as we left the kitchen, each of us levitating several trays laden with food into the dining room. I tried to strategically hide my apron with the platters of food, but when I looked down it was no longer there.

Harry winked when I peeked back at him and I laughed. Leave it to Harry to get me to concentrate on something more trivial when I would have otherwise been obsessing over the crowd of nearly fifty people waiting to eat.

He knew me so well.

Our normally small and cozy dining room had been stretched and transfigured to allow room for the nearly thirteen meter long table needed to fit all our guests. At one end were the two side-by-side empty chairs for Harry and I and then our four children, Orion, Edward, Stephanie and Isabella. Across from them were Shannon, Jean Claude and their two girls MacKenna and Gabrielle. The eldest of her girls, MacKenna, was dating Orion and they kept gazing bashfully across the table at one another. The younger still thought boys were icky.

Next to them were Hermione and Ron and their ever growing brood, going on six with Hermione's latest pregnancy. The rest of the Weasley clan filled the remainder of that side of the table and part of the other, where my parents sat, closest to our children.

They were ever the doting grandparents, spoiling our children rotten at every opportunity. Our youngest, Isabella, who was now in her third year of Hogwarts, still stayed at the manor for two full weeks out of every summer vacation because she got to do whatever she wanted.

When we set the platters on the table, Harry looked over and beamed at me as he took my hand.

"We'd like to thank you all for joining us here today as we celebrate the end of another wonderful year and the beginning of new and exciting adventures. We love you all and can't wait to see what's in store for our beautiful families in the coming months. May will find Orion and MacKenna graduating and maybe more," Harry added with a wink toward our son, to which Orion groaned whined a quiet and petulant 'dad'.

"September will find Edward in his final year of Hogwarts, Steph in her fifth and Bella in her fourth. We couldn't be prouder of our children," he announced warmly and there was a nod of agreement along the entire table.

"We'll miss Lucius and Cissy as they tour America next year, but I'm sure Molly will do a little extra spoiling of the kids on your behalf until you return," he laughed and Molly nodded with a glowing smile.

"Not too much I hope," Cissy called back. "I would like them to notice we're gone at least."

As the guests laughed and chatted amongst themselves, I wrapped an arm around my Harry and pulled him close. "I love you," I whispered against his ear and he blushed slightly.

"I love you, too," he replied with a gentle kiss on my cheek, a promise, I knew, for more to come later.

We gazed over our happy family and smiled contentedly, knowing for a fact that we had broken the curse placed upon our heads long before we were born and that we would have our happily-ever-after, after all.

FIN

Authors Note: Yes I'm fully away of the Twilight references, they were intentional. lol. With so many of my current projects coming to a close I'm starting to prepare a few new things, a couple of them as I mentioned before have been posted already, but I have at least 3 other projects in the works to fill in some of the gaps. I'm thankful to all of my loyal readers who follow through each journey with me and I look forward to entertaining you all again very soon.